In compression systems, a multiphase fluid is usually separated into phases prior to compression so that appropriate machinery and processes may be used on the respective phases. For example, a compressor may be suitable for a gaseous portion of the multiphase fluid but unsuitable for a liquid portion. To effect separation of gaseous materials from liquids, rotary separators may be used.
In some compression systems, however, the multiphase fluid may arrive at an inlet of the compression system containing more particulate matter, liquid phase, or other types of contaminants, than the rotary separator is designed to handle. Further, it may be desirable to have multiple passes at separating the multiphase fluid. In such cases, the compression systems may employ an array of swirl tubes to perform the first separation. The array of swirl tubes, however, introduces head loss into the compression system and generally requires a large number of swirl tubes to be effective, increasing the size, complexity, and therefore cost, and maintenance requirements of the compression system. Thus, what is needed is a compact density-based separator that does not suffer from the head losses or other drawbacks of the swirl tube arrays.